This invention relates to mixing faucets and particuarly the present invention represents improvements of the faucet and valve disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,433,264; 3,533,436; 3,893,482 and 3,920,043.
In general, this invention relates to a water faucet which employs a valve body with control elements formed by two discs. The first disc is stationary and has water inlet openings and a water outlet opening connected on one side to a valve manifold and on the other side is directed toward the second disc which is movably arranged on the first disc. The second disc has a surface cavity arranged and constructed to overlap the inlet openings and the outlet opening formed in the first disc. A noise reducing assembly is disposed within the surface cavity of the second disc and includes one or several screens spaced from the surface of the first disc so that there is a flow passage between the surface of the first disc and the screen or screens.
Experience has shown that these designs, well tried in principle, can be a bit noisy because they have to deal with comparatively high flow speeds and turbulences at the control edges in the region of the passageway from the inlet apertures of the first disc into the surface cavity due to the small operating passageways.
As shown in the above-referenced patents, screen arrangements in the surface cavity have considerably reduced the noise. The former hard impact of the water-jets on the bottom of the surface cavity is avoided by dispersing the jets by means of the screen arrangement producing a stablization in the region where the water flow is reversed or redirected significantly reducing the noises caused by the valve body and water sounds.
It is submitted that even with the developed state of the art there is still room for reduction in noise level particularly during the throttling and closing phases and in the mixing positions.